Janis Joplin's Vintage Porsche Could Sell for $500,000

A custom-painted Porsche that once belonged to the late San Francisco musician Janis Joplin will be sold by Sotheby's on Thursday for an expected price of around $500,000.

According to the Sotheby's listing, the 1964 Porsche 356 C 1600 SC Cabriolet, offered by Joplin's siblings Michael and Laura Joplin, is expected to be picked up in the company's "Driven By Disruption 2015" auction for between $400,000 and $600,000. She originally picked it up used for $3,500.

The car, which was called the "History of the Universe" due to its custom paint job, has been displayed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum for the past 20 years.

"It is an embodiment of its owner and her ethos," reads the listing. "Janis Joplin never needed status; she needed honesty, sincerity, and a hell of a lot of emotion, and those qualities spilled out of her in gravel tones and settled on these Stuttgart curves. She was her Porsche, and her Porsche is Janis Joplin."

Bloomberg Business took the Porsche, which has a manual transmission, for a spin and found it not only in working order, but "extremely fun to drive."

"Janis: Little Girl Blue," a documentary on Joplin's life, is screening through Dec. 10 at the Roxie Theatre in San Francisco. 

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